Something is in retrograde

I don't follow astrology very much but I found this story someone posted on Facebook and all I can think is that it's doing something peculiar to my undertakings this week.

Remember Bob?  I got two calls from him today; he thought he had a pickup to do at my house but it turns out he was supposed to pick up some tires somewhere else.  Even after I let his wife know he made a mistake, he called looking for directions to my house.  Luckily I set him straight before he made it to my neighborhood.

In eBay related news, I had not one but two people try to back out of sales after the auctions' completions, for no good reason other than they changed their minds.  One person decided to pay before I could react to her message about the cancellation request.  The other, who was in Canada, said she didn't want it because the postage was unexpectedly too high.  Not only would she have been able to calculate that ahead of time, the cost was $4 higher than the US economy rate I had listed.  After some back and forth, in which she changed her reasons several times for wanting to cancel, she finally paid.  I take the bidding thing seriously, the stuff is up for an entire week so there's plenty of time to retract bids.  After a week of hoping something will sell, I don't want to wait another week unnecessarily!

Is it a further coincidence that last night I watched A Dangerous Method again, in which Jung claims he doesn't believe in coincidences?  I think fate is trying to tell me to do things I've been putting off and stop being so flaky, i.e. to finish my accounting & tax documents once and for all.

Is it weird that I find this scene so soothing? 

I am expecting guests tomorrow night, and there's a lot of work to do around the house.  I've got to move a few shortboxes full of comics from the living room.  Also I have to keep in mind that one of those guests is a roly-poly teething baby!  I must baby-proof like the wind.

The dark horses at the eBay races

For the last few days I've been posting a quantity of items on eBay and seeing some surprising results.  I know the things I'm putting up for auction have some value, but it amazes me to see what people will collect.  A broken antique stereoscope went online this afternoon and already has a bid.  A wooden game board that I expected to bring in under $10 is up to three times that.  I wasn't even sure this stuff was going to get a second look, but you never know.  The old favorite, bakelite, is still garnering lots of attention, and there is some in one of my active auctions right now.  I'm short on packing materials.  I have bubble wrap but not enough boxes.  I'm kicking myself for being so thorough on some of the recycling last year, but spilt milk and all that.

I watched a terrifying movie while I was sorting out my office closet a couple days ago: Martha Marcy May Marlene.  It's about a young woman who escapes a cult and experiences psychological problems in the aftermath.  I got so freaked out I felt like I was tiptoeing around the house until I went to bed.  Then I had a dream that someone came in my house while I was sleeping and left the front door open!  This movie was really good, but if you see it, don't watch it alone at night! 

Everybody says it's just like Robin Hood

I got fed up with things last night and threw a sheet over the TV set so I won't revert to watching DVDs while trying to do other things.  Not that I'm not watching other things (hello YouTube) or overusing the computer in general, but I did manage to avoid the brain fog that overtook me since Sunday.  It seems that everyone I know is feeling it so I don't think it's all me, we are blaming on the weekend time change now.  I did get almost everything on my to-do list completed today.

I am using the ruse of gifting to move some things out of this house.  My brother in law is a musician with a big CD collection, so I am sending him and my sister a nice big box of CDs that I think they will like.  I am sending a friend a package of books as a late birthday present.  Hooray media mail rates!

I am also starting to sell on eBay again, so I put a few things up this evening.  I want to raise some money and make some room.

Yesterday was Donation Tuesday, that is, I gave away a lot of stuff without even planning to do it in a day.  I gave that weird wire rack to my friend Virginia for some extra storage of her own, and made a pit stop dropoff at SCRAP, where I also found cheap and plentiful contact paper.  I had nearly bought some new at Fred Meyer a couple days ago, but it the cheapest was $5.99 a roll!  No!!  I need it to cover some shelves in my linen closet, because I think they got a little oily with some of the medicines and things sitting on them for years.  I don't want clean sheets touching that!  I rounded off yesterday with a stop at Goodwill to get rid of the stuff I had left over.  The day began auspiciously with a call from Volunteers of America, asking if I had any household goods to have picked up.  They don't take furniture, alas.

I had a call from a guy yesterday about a job interview, who told me he was going to call me today to set up the appointment.  He never called, but I wasn't surprised.  If someone calls you to tell you they're going to call you, they have a problem.

    

Helpful for you, maybe...

I have been glossing through some more reading on the my favorite subject, and it's still not the best use of my time.  Toss, Keep, Sell! by Leah Ingram was good for people who want to make money from things they don't need anymore.  I didn't really need it, because I've been using eBay and Craigslist for years to sell things I don't want.  These are good outlets for a lot of people to get a little extra cash, but it  bothers me that people are making a bundle telling other people that there might be gold hiding in their cupboards and cellars.  I've sold I don't know how many things over the years and I can tell you that it also takes a lot of time to do it.  Especially if you are learning how it's done.

The other book I had was The Complete Idiot's Guide to Decluttering by Regina Leeds.  I liked it a lot, I think it's a great guide for someone who doesn't know where to begin.  It's methodical and breaks the job down room by room, and then each room is categorized into smaller spaces.  It's a smallish book, unlike other Idiots' Guides I'm used to.  I'm embarrassed to be seen in public with this kind of book, you see, so it's nice to be able to conceal it.

I've also got a book from the Real Simple series of lifestyle books, all about cleaning different things in the home room by room.  Things like electronics, appliances, rugs, you name it.  This book also goes room by room.  Unfortunately I don't have the title or author info right now.

Just because

I don't have a lot to say today.  I just wanted to drop in, mainly.  I've been feeling great these last couple days.  I think it has something to do with the beautiful fall weather we've been having.

I did a little sorting out of the laundry room, where I've been keeping a lot of movies.  How do you reattach a label from a dvd box when it's fallen off?  I seem to have a lot of those to fix.  I made a box of stuff to take to Free Geek.  I feel like I'm making custom gift baskets for celebrity award show swag every time I go downstairs.

I decided that it's in my best interests to give things away to charity than to make huge efforts to sell them, unless they seem like a sure thing.  My time is too valuable to plan the future life of every object I have.  I decided a long time ago that unless it's beautiful, or of real sentimental value, or very useful, then it doesn't need to take up space in my home.  Function over form and all that.  I can't hold onto everything waiting for the perfect time to have a garage sale.  My sanity is most important right now, not making five bucks in my driveway or putting every little tchotchke on eBay.

Did I mention that I'm making my bed every morning now?  For most of my life I rarely bothered, but I do it now right after I get up.  It's a nice habit that came out of my new quest for neatness.  I read a book about changing habits recently: The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business, by Charles Duhigg.  It says that changes to one habit lead to other positive changes, and this is an example.  I'm also trying to keep my kitchen cleaner and my refrigerator stocked.  I also make a hot breakfast every morning.  By that I mean oatmeal and fruit.  Maybe the breakfast thing came before the bed making though.

The Psychopath Test

I managed to make it to Goodwill and sell some books at the Hawthorne branch of Powells today.  The guy buying my books took so long that the other buyer met with at least three other individuals before I was done.  I have a lot of books left over - I plan to save them up and give a pile to Title Wave, the bookstore that raises money for the Multnomah County library system.  A lot of them might end up in the Friends of the Library booksale, which is where they started out before they ended up in my store.  The circle of life for a book.  

I've been reading a book by Jon Ronson, The Psychopath Test.  I'm finding that I've already heard a few of his anecodotes from the book on This American Life, but there's a lot more to it.  Mainly it's about what personality traits make a true psychopath and where one can find them in society.  Not too surprisingly, psychiatrists who have made this their focus of study believe that some of the top corporate leaders and politicians are bona fide Patrick Batemans.  Not in the homicidal sense, but they approach work as though they were preying on weaker animals.  I can think of a couple people I've met that might fit this description, but don't worry, if you are reading this you are not one of them.  Probably.

Instead of another boring pic of my basement, I'm putting here a little collage I made of stuff that I sold on eBay earlier this year.  This should brighten up your day: